I respect all religions. Unless people surrender their common sense or abdicate solving problems to their religion - I respect the religious as well.

IMO kids that are exposed to religion early don't really have a choice in their belief system. They are told to believe by their authority figure and never have a chance to escape their parents delusions. Is that wrong? Well, we're built to believe in something other than ourselves, so as long as folks aren't jerks and use religion as a tool to justify their hate of other? They are okay by me.

Regardless of where you fell on this issue, all it means is the will of the people be damned when it's against the wishes of the Democrats when they're inpower. So much for the 'party of the people".

Yes and no. We don't want to go for a no holds barred, majority rules all democracy. We are a constitutional republic. Look at it this way, if you're stranded on an island and the rest of the group loves the pet goat but thinks you're an a--hole, when people start getting hungry you damn sure don't want your basic rights coming down to a majority vote. Remember, we gun owners may (and probably will) be in this same boat one day.

That being said, I have no problems with gays having civil unions or trying to make civil unions hold as much weight as a marriage when it comes to benefits. I don't like the union being called a marriage though and I didn't form that opinion with any hatred or malice towards homosexuals. In fact I hold the same opinion when it comes to straight couples who are atheist. If God isn't involved, it ain't a marriage. It's just a legal technicality in order to obtain benefits.

Regardless of where you fell on this issue, all it means is the will of the people be damned when it's against the wishes of the Democrats when they're in power. So much for the 'party of the people".

Well, it's a conservative court and it still went the way of the Gays.

Just because the majority votes for something doesn't mean they are going to get their way. That the court knocked the case out based on standing has little to do with how the Dems or the Courts view the issue of Gay marriage itself.

Sometimes folks don't have standing, other times what people want is unconstitutional. Sometimes it's neither and voters get their way.

Don't vilify the Dems because the chips fell their way this time. It's not like they influenced the courts.

Regardless of where you fell on this issue, all it means is the will of the people be damned when it's against the wishes of the Democrats when they're in power. So much for the 'party of the people".

Well, it's a conservative court and it still went the way of the Gays.

Just because the majority votes for something doesn't mean they are going to get their way. That the court knocked the case out based on standing has little to do with how the Dems or the Courts view the issue of Gay marriage itself.

Sometimes folks don't have standing, other times what people want is unconstitutional. Sometimes it's neither and voters get their way.

Don't vilify the Dems because the chips fell their way this time. It's not like they influenced the courts.

Slow,

Maybe you can set me straight (no pun intended... let's not go that direction!) on the background. The voters approved prop 8. The Homosexual community filed that it violated their civil rights. 9th circuit overturned the prop (no, not overturned, but filed an injunction to prevent it from taking effect???) based on the lawsuit. Prop 8 backers (NOT the state govt.) appealed to the SCOTUS, which declined to hear it since the 'appealers' (I know that's not the right word, but it gets the meaning across) were not representatives of the State, and the official State position (the Democrat-controlled state government, under Jerry Brown) was / is something along the lines of "We won't bother to defend what the people of this state voted for, because our ideology does not agree with the will of the people", which made the appeal invalid.

Yes, it was a conservative court, and they did just what they legally had to do...I have no problem there. What I'm bitching at was the fact that the Democrat held State government under Jerry chose not to defend a voter approved proposition, which (in my mind) means they did not pursue what the voters wanted, but instead chose to follow their agenda. Thus the will of the people was overturned by political ideology.

And Clamp, if you think that this ruling will protect gun owners in this State at some future point, and my analysis is correct, think again. If this was a prop to outlaw handguns, assault weapons, semi auto weapons, whatever... And a gun rights group filed an injunction to stop it, do you think a democrat-controlled State government would not bother to appeal that injunction to the SCOTUS and enforce the ban? How the State chooses to defend a lawsuit doesn't necessarily cut both ways, it depends on who is in control in Sacramento at the time...the will of the people be damned.

High Sierras wrote: .....And Clamp, if you think that this ruling will protect gun owners in this State at some future point, and my analysis is correct, think again. If this was a prop to outlaw handguns, assault weapons, semi auto weapons, whatever... And a gun rights group filed an injunction to stop it, do you think a democrat-controlled State government would not bother to appeal that injunction to the SCOTUS and enforce the ban? How the State chooses to defend a lawsuit doesn't necessarily cut both ways, it depends on who is in control in Sacramento at the time...the will of the people be damned.

Oh, don't get me wrong. I don't think that this particular ruling has anything to do with protecting gun rights. I'm just saying that the process could be used to block actions taken by the antis should they one day get a majority passed bill that encroaches upon our second amendment rights. You are 100% correct that the end result will likely come down to the political agenda of those who make the final decision. That would make their decision unjust, not the process. Like I said, we are a constitutional republic not a majority ruled democracy. It was designed that way for a reason.

Incest has got to go. Clearly it hasn't stopped what was feared. This quote proves it clearly.

slowshooter wrote:And so the h8rs have to go and live empty, horrible lives, with their marriages ruined and devalued because someone else is happy.

We used to think that it took someone with a family tree that looked like a walking stick to produce this kind of ignorance in a grown educated adult, but the proof is clear it's not biology, it's ideology.

A politician thinks of the next election; a statesman of the next generation. A politician looks for the success of his party; a statesman for that of the country. The statesman wished to steer, while the politician was satisfied to drift.

Incest has got to go. Clearly it hasn't stopped what was feared. This quote proves it clearly......

Seriously?

Do I think the government should recognize marriage between any two people that wish to call themselves married? Of course not.

But by what logic can the h8ers justify the government not recognize two brothers who wish to be joined in matrimony? How does it devalue their marriage?

If they happened to be identical twins in love, why would anything but your horrible life and h8 make you irrate?

A politician thinks of the next election; a statesman of the next generation. A politician looks for the success of his party; a statesman for that of the country. The statesman wished to steer, while the politician was satisfied to drift.

Regardless of where you fell on this issue, all it means is the will of the people be damned when it's against the wishes of the Democrats when they're in power. So much for the 'party of the people".

Well, it's a conservative court and it still went the way of the Gays.

Just because the majority votes for something doesn't mean they are going to get their way. That the court knocked the case out based on standing has little to do with how the Dems or the Courts view the issue of Gay marriage itself.

Sometimes folks don't have standing, other times what people want is unconstitutional. Sometimes it's neither and voters get their way.

Don't vilify the Dems because the chips fell their way this time. It's not like they influenced the courts.

Slow,

Maybe you can set me straight (no pun intended... let's not go that direction!) on the background. The voters approved prop 8. The Homosexual community filed that it violated their civil rights. 9th circuit overturned the prop (no, not overturned, but filed an injunction to prevent it from taking effect???) based on the lawsuit. Prop 8 backers (NOT the state govt.) appealed to the SCOTUS, which declined to hear it since the 'appealers' (I know that's not the right word, but it gets the meaning across) were not representatives of the State, and the official State position (the Democrat-controlled state government, under Jerry Brown) was / is something along the lines of "We won't bother to defend what the people of this state voted for, because our ideology does not agree with the will of the people", which made the appeal invalid.

Yes, it was a conservative court, and they did just what they legally had to do...I have no problem there. What I'm bitching at was the fact that the Democrat held State government under Jerry chose not to defend a voter approved proposition, which (in my mind) means they did not pursue what the voters wanted, but instead chose to follow their agenda. Thus the will of the people was overturned by political ideology.

And Clamp, if you think that this ruling will protect gun owners in this State at some future point, and my analysis is correct, think again. If this was a prop to outlaw handguns, assault weapons, semi auto weapons, whatever... And a gun rights group filed an injunction to stop it, do you think a democrat-controlled State government would not bother to appeal that injunction to the SCOTUS and enforce the ban? How the State chooses to defend a lawsuit doesn't necessarily cut both ways, it depends on who is in control in Sacramento at the time...the will of the people be damned.

HS,That's a good question. I think that some administrations have to look at legislation/propositions and determine if they believe that the stuff is even constitutional. That the Brown administration chose not to defend it meant that they felt it probably wasn't going to pass constitutional muster. In this case, that and the fact that it was a Dem administration was more coincidental than anything else. That prop could have been sent to Sac with Arnold in office.

What is interesting to me is that no one has definitively answered if it's "constitutional" or not (although I may have missed that). And I don't believe anyone will. Why? Because polygamy and polyandry are right around the corner. The Fed and State governments know this - and so do the courts. If you accept one set of folks that are in a non-standard marriage minority, then you would have accept all the non-standard marriage minorities out there... That's why you won't see a proclamation from the Feds that protects various marriage architectures.

While the Gay community gets the protections I believe they deserve, those protections will be based moving forward via an administrative bureaucracy - not declaring actual freedom. And the government won't have it any other way.

The Mormons, Islamists and Polyandrous are going to have to continue to operate in the shadows.

Incest has got to go. Clearly it hasn't stopped what was feared. This quote proves it clearly......

Seriously?

Do I think the government should recognize marriage between any two people that wish to call themselves married? Of course not.

Agreed, but why would you insinuate that my sarchastic question about polygamy pointed in a direction that I am inbred?

I implied no one was inbred. At least I don't think that is slow's problem. My point was that slow's ridiculous statement proves that the prohibition on incest has failed to protect us from inbred intellect becoming common because it is ideology over biology that leads to such recalcitrant ignorance based on attacking fictional strawmen that we stereotype as an inbred intellect.

The truth must withstand every counter argument. The left only addresses the most foolish ones and often ones that they just made up in their crazy little brains. For examples that h8 is the best argument for government only recognizing non-incestuous so-called traditional marriage. This is the kind of thing that passes for enlightenment when you have an inbred intellect.

Incest is the next step and not polygamy. Partially because it hasn't protected us from the inbred intellect. But primarily even someone with an inbred intellect can see that there is no logical argument for the government banning incestuous marriages as most if not all states currently do, particularly same-sex incestuous marriage. Even liberals know the difference between 2 and 3, but apparently they can't tell any pairs apart.

"Could a father not marry his son?" Irons asked during an interview with The Huffington Post. He said this technically would not be incest if it were between men, because "incest is there to protect us from inbreeding, but men don't breed.”

They should have just argued in court that marriage is just affirmative action for the breeders. Affirmative action is good, but breeders are bad, so it would have confound the liberal inbred intellect.

slowshooter wrote:I guess it begs the question... Why the heck would you care? It's not your life.

What was the argument for Obamacare? Oh yeah, your behavior effects me because of the way government works today so we have the right to force you to do what I want or some such nonsense. If you want to ban the government from recognizing all marriages, I can and would support that fully. But you pick and choose. The ONLY reason for the government to recognize any marriage is because the FAMILY is the smallest unit of an ordered society. Two guys will NEVER make a baby and neither will a single person without divine intervention. Single people adopt children all the time, but we don't call them married and we don't argue for calling an individual married.

The ONLY relevant societal interest is that we need a next generation and that next generation is produced by one man and one woman, granted there are almost infinite paths for one man and one woman to make a baby as well as the eventual course of that child's life or premature death if it is for example aborted.

The IDEAL conditions for raising the next generation is unquestionably a large stable family which includes not just one father and one mother, but siblings, 4 grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, ... all related in the traditional biological way. You want lots of redundancy. Also adoption in any form is necessary in reality but it is clearly not ideal. Granted adoption is vastly superior to being executed, but many adopted kids have a sense of abandonment, confusion, wonder, whatever it is that is not dissimilar to kids that are abandoned by their father or mother and it is far from ideal whatever form it takes. Recognizing the ideal does not mean deny what is real and I have no doubt that in this vast nation that there are some cases where a gay couple was the best available option for some particular child nor should we preclude it by law when it is not.

The only reason government should care is 100% about the children and subsidizing and encourage as close to the ideal circumstance as possible for children being born and raised in that environment. Our social welfare system creates an environment that destroys that. It's not gay marriage and those that think it is have the same inbred intellect that you are afflicted with, granted a very different ideological inbreeding. It's welfare that is orders of magnitude more destructive. The "tolerance" of gay marriage is but a minor symptom of that social decay. Two men living together and calling themselves married should not be crime, but it should not be subsidized by government. But I can't counter the argument that no marriages should be, however subsidizing the baby makers is not that dissimilar to the argument for public education, child and youth services organizations, and the many other things that are supposed to ensure the next generation thrives, supposed to even though they fail miserably all too often and arguably the good they do is exceeded by the unanticipated harm that results in the real world.

A politician thinks of the next election; a statesman of the next generation. A politician looks for the success of his party; a statesman for that of the country. The statesman wished to steer, while the politician was satisfied to drift.